Week 1: Defining Territory
Initial meeting:
During the initial meeting, we discussed our general interest areas as well as existing music services we have previously seen. We did not want to focus our project on a typical music streaming service, instead, we found ourselves gravitating more towards the niche market. While discussing, we found emerging categories in our interests: music services for 1. productivity, 2. wellbeing, 3. community bonding, 4. inclusion, 5. creative expression, and 6. environment/ servicescape.
Preliminary Research:
After we identified different categories, we individually researched existing services, products, and studies of each interest area. Our research included
- Music playlists in surgical rooms in the hospital,
- Type of music in pain management and meditation,
- Music therapy for PTSD and depression,
- A role of music in agriculture,
- Concert for deaf and accessibility (7up and Martin Garrix),
- Use of sensors and body storming in music creation,
- Generation gap in music,
- On-the-spot commenting in the music community,
- Methods of visualizing music.
Defining Territory:
We then shared our research and tried to get to consensus on our territory. We found an opportunity in medical communication between doctor and terminally ill patient and the concept of “life after death.”
“Chopin never died, he just became music.”
Inspired by a service that turns human ashes into a diamond, we wanted to create a service that allows the terminally ill patients to express and understand themselves by reflecting on their lives while creating music that represents their belief, values, memories, and emotions. Family members can then listen to the music that was created by the patient to remember and better understand their loved ones.
To minimize the pressure of masterpiece creation and to capture both declines and peaks of patient’s lives, we are thinking of concept similar to “1-second a day.” For example, patients can create small pieces of music based on different prompts (e.g., express your feeling when you first had your baby), the emotion of the day, different symptoms, etc. and program or family members can compose those pieces into a complete music piece.
